424 THE METHODIST HYMN-BOOK ILLUSTRATED
Hymn 828. Hark! a voice divides the sky. CHARLES WESLEY (i).
Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1742 ; Works, ii. 189. A Funeral Hymn. The last verse is omitted.
With ver. 3 the Rev. J. Wesley Thomas compares Cowley s lines
When we, by a foolish figure, say,
Behold an old man dead ; then they
Speak properly, and say, Behold a man-child born.
{Life, lines 14-16.)
��Hymn 829. Again we lift our voice.
CHARLES WESLEY (i).
Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749 ; Works, v. 214.
In ver. 6 Charles Wesley wrote, Thither we all repair.
On the death of Samuel Kitchens. 1 He was a Cornish smith, one of the earliest lay preachers in Cornwall. An account of his life, written by his father, was published by Wesley in 1746. Another son, Thomas, died a month later, on September 12.
At Gwennap, on September 14, 1746, Wesley says, At the close of my sermon, I read them the account of Thomas Hitchens s death ; and the hearts of many burned within them, so that they could not conceal their desire to go to him, and be with Christ.
The rapture of the hymn reminds us of those scenes in the days of Jerome. At the funeral of Fabiola, one of the Christian ladies of his time, the people made the golden roof of the church ring with their shout of Hallelujah !
Ver. 5 owes a thought to Ben Jonson s Pindaric Ode
He leaped the present age,
Possest with holy rage
To see that bright eternal day.
Dr. Gregory s Recollections, p. 113, give a touching story of the use of this hymn at Woodhouse Grove School in 1838, at the grave of Samuel Sierra Leone Brown, whose death led to a wonderful awakening among his schoolfellows.
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